Ruben Rocha Moyathe governor of Sinaloa, has requested permission from the state Congress to temporarily step aside from office. The president of Morena announced his decision this Friday night two days after the United States Department of Justice announced that it accuses him for links to the Sinaloa Cartel to him and nine other current and former State officials. “I am not going to allow myself to be used to harm the movement to which I belong and that has changed the lives of millions of Mexicans for the better,” the governor said in a press conference in which he denied the accusations made against him by the Prosecutor’s Office of the Southern District of New York.
The governor’s announcement came hours after the Prosecutor’s Office offered a press conference on the case that has caused a scandal in Mexican politics. Raúl Jiménez, the international affairs prosecutor, explained to the press that the request for arrest for reasons of extradition made by the US Department of Justice to the Mexican Foreign Ministry was not accompanied by the necessary evidence. “There is no evidence attached to the petition that proves the commission of an alleged crime,” the official said Friday morning.
Since the controversy broke out, the Government has maintained a defensive line. Faced with the formidable dilemma that the case represents, which has greatly strained the bilateral relationship with the United States, the president herself, Claudia Sheinbaum, has built a wall of protection by slipping that “If there is no clear evidence, it is evident that the objective of these accusations is political”. The strategy is to try to save time and achieve a certain margin to set the times. In fact, Rocha’s temporary resignation opens the door to an investigation by the Attorney General’s Office (FGR) itself. Although for now, the official position is that he has asked his American counterparts for more evidence before acting and reaching a hypothetical arrest in Mexico and extradition north of the border, as requested by the State Department.
In a message of just two minutes, Rocha Moya denied the accusations made against him by the US courts. “I have a clear conscience (…) The accusations against me are false and malicious. I can see my people and my family in front of me because I have not betrayed them nor will I betray them,” said the governor. “I will prove that when the justice authorities of my country require it,” he added.
The local Congress held an extraordinary session this Saturday to approve, for a period of 30 days, the license of the 76-year-old Morenoist governor. By temporarily separating, the politician loses the immunity that protects him from eventual arrest, according to Arturo Zaldívar, a former Supreme Court judge sympathetic to Morenoism.
Rocha will be replaced by Yeraldine Bonillathe current Secretary of Government. This Friday’s movement contrasts, in any case, with the tranquility with which Rocha seemed to accept the scandal at first. The same day the accusation was made public, he said that he had spoken with the president and that “nothing was going to happen.”
Rocha Moya is the most important name in the New York prosecutors’ indictment, but he is not the only one. They also appear Senator Enrique Inzunza Cázarezalso from Morena; the businessman and former Secretary of Administration and Finance Enrique Díaz Vega, the Deputy Prosecutor Dámaso Castro Saavedra, the former directors of the Investigative Police Marco Antonio Almanza Avilez and Alberto Jorge Contreras Núñez, the former Secretary of Security Gerardo Mérida Sánchez, the former director of the State Police José Antonio Dionisio Hipólito, the mayor of Culiacán, the capital of Sinaloa, Juan de Dios Gámez Mendívil, and the former secretary of Security of this municipality, Juan Valenzuela Millán.
The US Justice accuses the group of receiving bribes and collaborating with the faction of Los Chapitos, Joaquín’s children El Chapo Guzmán, the kingpin who is serving a life sentence in a Colorado prison. The group of Iván Archivaldo Guzmán Salazar, Jesús Alfredo Guzmán Salazar and Ovidio Guzmán López has been fighting, since the end of 2024, for control of the criminal organization with the faction of those loyal to Ismael May Zambada, another legendary capo awaiting sentencing in New York.
“The defendants, all of whom are current or former government or law enforcement officials in Sinaloa, have participated in this criminal association with the cartel to import massive quantities of fentanyl, heroin, cocaine and methamphetamine from Mexico into the United States,” reads the indictment made public Wednesday.
The file ensures, without evidence, according to the statements of the Mexican authorities, that the 10 men protected the leaders of the cartel against investigations, arrests and judicial processes. In addition, the accused would have provided the criminals with information about the operations and movements of local police and military.
“In exchange, the defendants have collectively received millions of dollars in money from the cartel’s drug trafficking,” say prosecutors, who included in the indictment photographs of hand-taken notes with alleged bribes.
The mayor also asks for a license
Following the example of Rocha Moya, Mayor Juan de Dios Gámez Mendívil presented his license request to the Culiacán Council. This was approved unanimously. Gámez Mendívil, who is the governor’s godson, leaves office for ten days and makes himself available for the Prosecutor’s Office to carry out its investigation. Trustee Ana Ramos will be the interim mayor of the city of one million inhabitants.
